One two, one two
Okay so I still have a lot of meal plans hanging out in a lot of open tabs, but let me tell you people: audio engineers make math fun. Or at least practical.
I’ve spent the last two evenings in webinars, listening to some high-level nerds try to make physics & geometry simple enough for us plebeians to grasp the necessary concepts to make Good Sound. In reality, though, they’re teaching us how to use a pretty simple computer program to pump out some pretty astonishing mathematical grandiosity. Thankfully, I’ve input a lot of data into spreadsheets before, so I think I might have a leg up on my fellow webinar attendees, who all definitely know much more about audio than I do.
These presenters, though, are another breed. I love them. I feel like I met them all in Community College, probably in the computer lab. Somehow they now work at one of the coolest companies a nerd could possibly work at. They throw out phrases like “of course everyone knows…” before spouting off random facts that everyone definitely does NOT know, but thankfully I read the first three pages of a book about Very Basic Audio Concepts once that covered these facts, so at least they sound a little bit familiar, phew.
Despite assuming we know things that maybe they shouldn’t, these guys are pretty fantastic. The way they talk reveals their nerdery. They play pranks on their fellow presenters by changing the size of their computer cursors. They chuckle at queries from the Zoom chat that show oh yes, these listeners are also nerds and guess what I was just about to get to! The answer to your question, ho ho ho, are you reading my notes? It’s amazing and adorable and fascinating and I want to shake all of their hands and say “thank you for your service.”
I don’t think I have any chance of turning into a nerd by attending these webinars, but by gosh and by golly, I’m certainly willing to try. Or maybe I’m already a nerd and I don’t know it. That rings a little true. Because it’s all just SO COOL and it’s MATH and COMPUTERS and did you know you can figure out how to make things SOUND GOOD with those concepts?? I know it; I’ve known it for a while. But each time I get another tiny kernel of this specific type of knowledge, it turns my world golden and that light makes it just a little bigger.
I think I maybe love live sound like some people love poetry. Concepts I’ve learned before still tickle and amaze me. I feel like I’m always learning all of it for the first time, but somehow it’s all so familiar, like an old shirt that I’ve practically grown up in. I frequently fall asleep to my husband’s technical rundown of the day and I feel bad that I’m not giving him my full attention but it’s just so nice.
I think I might also be a bit scared to try and be a Real Nerd. I’m not great with technical language; I forget mathematical formulae. I tend toward the jist of the thing, relying on feel in ways that I don’t think those more theoretically minded than I would tolerate. I speak more philosophically than rigourously. But all that being said, I do consider myself pretty smart, attentive, and clever. I have a lot of faith in both my ability to follow logical processes and my ability to figure things out. As my mother likes to say, “I got a college degree. I know how to read a recipe.” I, similarly, am perfectly able to read a manual.
And so. In closing (real writers never say “in closing;” it’s much too pointed, and it’s silly to tell your reader what is so obviously happening), I am tired and it is time for bed. But as I brush my teeth and put on my pyjamas, I’m going to hang on to that golden glow and hopefully fall asleep listening to my love’s thoughts on polarity, SPL, and cardioid subwoofers.